and so when you have that sort of double whammy, sandy, newtown shootings, fiscal cliff, all these things can combine to depress shoppers' appetite to spend at this point. >> we'll talk a lot more over the next couple of hours where the discounts really came. there's a lot of talk about walmart and gap, and macy's and target. and then what that's going to meet as they try to clear out all this inventory, really starting today, going into the first part of the new year. those things have to get off the shelves. and that's going to affect margins one way or the other. >> let's bring in jackie deangelo, crunching the numbers back at headquarters. >> i'm going to recap what you said a little bit earlier. according to mastercard's spending poll, the few weeks leading up to christmas rose only .7%. a pretty big miss there. to give you perspective, after a drop of 5.5% in 2008, holiday sales have seen a steady rebound since then, including a 2% increase last year. this less than 1% figure, bound to be disappointing. online shopping also showed some muted results. spending polls show web sales we